SAP’s cloud strategy reinforced the German software company’s achievement of the Leader rank in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI).
For 14 years in a row, SAP has been named the software industry leader of Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) based on the company’s initiatives in driving a reliable, compliant cloud strategy, valuing employees as its most important asset, and enhancing its integrated reporting capabilities. DJSI family tracks the stock performance of the world’s leading companies in terms of economic, environmental, and social criteria.
Luka Mucic, Chief Financial Officer and Member of the Executive Board at SAP SE said:
“We are proud of our ranking in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. This shows us once again that we have a special responsibility as sustainability leaders in the software industry. It drives us to even further intensify the work with our customers to provide them with solutions for their sustainability transformation, so we can all jointly build a more inclusive and regenerative economy.”
Despite the pandemic challenges, a total of 83 companies from the software industry participated in this year’s assessment, more than double last year’s number.
Recognising SAP’s Cloud Strategy
SAP has been setting the benchmark for the software industry, especially during these unprecedented times, by leveraging intelligent technologies to help organisations better support their employees, customers, and suppliers. SAP’s reliable, compliant cloud strategy was a contributing factor in the recent DJSI recognition.
Topping the DJSI ranking, surpassing past years’ scores, and increasing its position vis-à-vis industry counterparts, only prove SAP’s relentless efforts to serve the SAP community even under the COVID climate.
The overall score achieved by SAP this year was 74 out of 100 points, 5 points higher than its 2019 performance. The software industry leader improved its percentile value in 15 out of the 20 categories compared to the previous year. SAP performed even better this year in the categories of “Information Security/Cybersecurity & System Availability”, “Talent Attraction & Retention”, and “Environmental Reporting.”
Moreover, versus last year, SAP has shown stronger performance in all three overarching dimensions:
- Governance and economics: 65 (2019: 61)
- Environmental: 87 (2019: 83)
- Social: 81 (2019: 73)
ESG Drive
SAP has been driving ESG initiatives focused on holistic steering and reporting for its overall business as well as for its customers’ success. SAP’s Integrated Report enables customers, shareholders, and communities to appreciate the company’s business performance through new accounting practices that encompass economic, social, and environmental impacts.
SAP has also been at the forefront of the circular economy paradigm. Climate 21, a program that also leverages SAP Product Carbon Footprint Analytics application to support customers in pursuing their climate-related objectives, is one of the ESG initiatives of SAP.
Another sustainability program of SAP is Plastics Cloud aimed to help SAP customers manage plastic use more effectively through collaboration among businesses, governments, and consumers across the plastics value chain. Internally, the tech firm has also been implementing ‘Beyond Single-Use Plastics’, a company-wide program by the SAP’s Global Environmental Management System that includes 55 sites.
SAP has also joined the social initiatives of Value Balancing Alliance e.V., a non-profit organisation with the ambition to change the way how company performance is measured and valued, and QuartaVista, a project funded by the German government that aims to standardize broad measures of corporate impact.
Consequently, SAP’s exceptional ESG performance has gained commendation from other ESG ratings. SAP became:
- A constituent of the FTSE4 Good Index series, a series of benchmark and tradable indexes for ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investors
- A constituent of the Euronext Vigeo Eiris indices (Europe 120 and Eurozone 120)
- An ESG leader by MSCI Inc. (formerly Morgan Stanley Capital International) with the top rating of “AAA”
- Included in the Wall Street Journal’s new ranking of the 100 most sustainably managed companies, a first for SAP
